Messages: 4514 Location: New York
Registered: November 2003
Interview with Martin Frei from URWERK
Sun, 22 April 2007 20:44
Presentation of the 201
During a break from SIHH last week, I stopped by the beautiful Hotel des Bergues with a fellow TimeZone moderator to see the goodies from URWERK. Several independent and smaller brands (like Richard Mille, Michel Jordi, etc.) don't exhibit at SIHH and instead have private showings at strategic locations around Geneva. When I arrived, I had to wait a few minutes while Yacine Sar, PR for URWERK, wrapped up with another customer. As she began our presentation I could see why the gentleman before me had a hard time leaving. The 201 aka Hammerhead is hardly news at this point, and has been covered before on many watch aficionado sites and magazines. So I will only cover it briefly here, but it was great to finally see it in person and try it on (Wow!). But the highlight of my visit without a doubt was being able to sit and chat with Martin Frei, one of the co-founders of URWERK.
"The 201 does not have any official birthday. In 2004 what was to become the 201 existed already in a shadowed corner of my mind and the process of it taking form on my design bench is as follows. First I scribbled the wildest ideas into my scrapbook; then, armed with my fetish tools - a black and a red crayon, semi-greasy with points lightly moist so that they slip easily over the paper - I filled pages on pages of sketches in what was virtually a semi-hypnotic trance.
The resulting drawings had, on first view, strange shapes with right angles, sharp points and very defined lines. And then, one idea began to impose itself much stronger than all the others and the vision astonished me: a galactic spaceship with a shape reminiscent of a powerful animal. The form imposed itself on me and I repeated it over and over on my sheets from different angles of view: front, back, profile…"
Martin Frei
Designer and co-founder of URWERK
Wrist shot of the 201 in platinum
"The 201 is a machine to master time. It has the force, the character and the aggressivity necessary to hold onto the minutes. The 201 is like a living machine adapting to its environment, reacting and transforming its temporal path. Despite my playing a role in bringing it to life, the watch continues to impress me. The 201 is a machine you have to tame, which is why I nicknamed it, 'Hammerhead'".
Martin Frei
Designer and co-founder of URWERK
The 201 is designed down to the smallest detail. The photo above show how the needle which points to the minute chapter expands and retracts as it follows the track.
The needle fully retracted as it makes its way around the watch.
From URWERK:
The control board on the back of the 201 was inspired by the gauges of a sports car:
* The ‘Oil Change’ indicator informs the owner that a service is due after three years of operation.
* The linear 100 Year Plus indicator functions like a car’s odometer and is a completely new and totally original indication on a wristwatch. The 100 Year Plus indicator keeps track of the total hours of the movement’s operation for well over a century.
* The Fine Tuning screw. An easy to use adjustment enabling the wearer to precisely tune the timing of the watch to his own specific lifestyle.
The bottom of the watch showing the control panel.
A comparison of the control panel on the 103 (left) and the new 201 (right)
The case is machined out of a solid piece of gold.
The bottom of the case is made out of titanium and is harder to manufacture than the precious metal case. In the center, where the hole for the "Oil Change" indicator is located, the case is almost paper thin! Next to it we see the crystals for the top and bottom.
The hands. On the reverse side (right) you can see the track that allows the minute needle to expand and retract as it goes around the dial.
The 201 from the side.
"… I nicknamed it, ‘Hammerhead’…"
Interview with Martin Frei
I was lucky enough to have my appointment late in the evening, because after Yacine showed us the new models, Martin had some free time to sit down and chat with us.
Martin Frei of URWERK
TimeZone: How did you decide on the shape of the 201?
Martin Frei: Well, it's 2 things - on one hand it had to look like an URWERK watch. It had to be similar to the shape of this watch [points to 103]. And on the other hand it had to be a totally new watch. What I wanted to do is to make it a little bit more aggressive. More manly, sharper, a little less elegant [compared to the 103].
Sketches of the 201
TZ: Between the design and production, how many months did it take?
MF: We started about 3 years ago developing the watch, but you know, I'm already very early thinking about a lot of new possible products. It's my part to have ideas ready and to change things fast. We try to keep the design open as long as possible. We might say "OK, we don't really want to do this" and we'll try something different. Now I have ideas for even new time indication mechanisms. We're always thinking about different projects and discovering new possibilities.
TZ: So far all of the watches have a satellite-style indication. Are these new indications you mentioned still in the same theme? Do you think that is a central theme for URWERK?
MF: We will definitely keep this type of indication because we really love it and it's kind of a URWERK indication. But because we have these ideas we want to elaborate. We want to find other time indication principles to work on. It's really an old idea [the satellite indication] - from the 17th century. Felix saw this at home at his parent's place, his father is an antique watch seller and restorer and so he was around this watch history from childhood. And he saw this principle and so he started with this. But of course it makes sense to have different time indications, it's what we're interested in, to try out new things. It gives us a chance to design new cases, new watches
The spaceship 201
TZ: From the Sputnik to these bigger style watches, do you see yourselves going back to let's say a dressy URWERK or do you think it will keep evolving with this "raw" style?
MF: Well, there are a lot of different possibilities. We can't do everything at the same time, so we have to go quite slowly, we take slow steps, and therefore we have to see in which direction it goes. As I said, we try to keep it open as much as possible.
TZ: Do you have plans for, let's say, a chronograph or more advanced complications?
MF: We have definitely ideas in our book [laughs]. There are ideas for almost everything, from watches with hands, even though we are not at the moment interested in this, but of course we keep this in our system, sure. But to go a step backwards, to bring back an old watch again [referring to the Sputnik-style] I don't think we are at the moment in this state. We are trying to go forward.
TZ: In terms of the concept of the watch, URWERK is a very design oriented company. With your watches you can see that there is a very heavy design influence from start to finish. Do you think there's a balance between the design and the mechanics, or does one drive the other?
MF: The funny thing is I'm not a designer, I'm an artist and I studied art. Baumgartner approached me. I was like "OK, watches...hmm" [rolls eyes, laughs] "OK, why not, let's do it". But I didn't design it you know, there was this idea of a different time indication, and this different time indication allowed me to make something other than a watch. You know, it didn't have to look the way a regular watch looks. For instance, it had one side, where the time is indicated. You don't have this design where you look at the watch like this [holds wrist flat], you can look at the watch like this [holds wrist sideways]. The indication of the time can be located in a different place. That's how it started. So it's more like form follows function in this sense. It's because the time indication works in a different way, then the shape of the watch is different.
You don't have this design where you look at the watch like this… you can look at the watch like this
TZ: So the genesis is really the different time indication
MF: Yes, that's what gave me the opportunity to come up with this different shape for the case.
TZ: Will you stop the production of this piece [pointing to 103] or is this going to continue?
MF: It is going to continue. We have now two watches, two models, and we are going to work on the no. 3 model.
TZ: Can you give us production figures?
MF: What I can tell you is that for this year we have 40 of these watches [points to 201], including the limited edition. If you ask me about the 103, I'm not 100% sure how many we will produce, you'd have to ask Felix [laughs].
TZ: How did your watches evolve?
MF: You know, once we made this watch [points to Millennium Falcon], it was actually Felix's father that said why don't you do a watch that you can read the time while driving? So we said "OK, that's a good idea", so we put the time indication on this side [points to 103], at the edge of the watch, and I thought "super!". So then I moved the crown to this side [points to the 12 o'clock position] and then we had the so-called URWERK 'signature'. First, I had the watch only indicating the time like this, the only thing that was showing was the time function…
The first 103 was closed. Afterwards we opened it because we though, ok we have to see what's going on. If you think about it, you have an hour indicator: it's a mix between a digital and an analog way of showing the time. Now, if you look at a regular watch, they have the future and past at one glance. You see what you're going to do in three hours, and what happened before. Now with this watch [points to 103] you have somehow the hours waiting to be indicating the time. They're kind of stored here [points to the top half of the watch] and then you have one hour to your service.
A different feel of time…
It's a different feel. So when you wear this watch you have a different feel of time. That's the interesting thing about different indications. That's also why we will continue to work on this theme.
URWERK generations - left to right: Hammerhead, 103, Millennium Falcon
TZ: It's similar to the star wheel from Audemars Piguet, where they show the cross in the middle.
MF: Exactly, except in the AP it's done with stars, not with a Maltese or Geneva cross as we do. But the original idea comes from 1650, and comes from these guys, these two brothers.
TZ: There’s a lot of history behind this.
MF: Yes, first I really loved these antique clocks, you see the time indicated like this [shows the Millennium Falcon] and then you have space for a painting, or engraving. So that's what we did then after discovering the 103 - to engrave it, we have space to do different things.
TZ: What made you decide to open it up, did you get feedback from collectors?
MF: Well, it evolved naturally. First you do it like this [covers watch so only the edge shows] because you think that's the way it has to be. Then you think "but wait a moment, I want to see it". But because you can't do everything at once, you go step by step. So there is a natural evolution in these products, and you can see it from this watch to this one [points to Millennium Falcon and 201]. It's steps.
TZ: Big steps.
MF: [laughs] Yes, it's true, because it requires quite a lot of time between each step.
TZ: Which is your favorite so far?
MF: [puzzled look] Well... this is really difficult to say because I'm totally connected to all of them. It's like asking which one of your kids you love more [laughs]. This I know already for a long time [points to Millennium Falcon]. Really it's like in Art. Usually in art you have periods, you have the archaic period where everything is kind of fresh, you have a revolutionary idea, something new, something clean. And then you go through a phase where you get a little bit more sure about what you're doing. We're probably in this phase. And then the third period, who knows?
TZ: [pointing to each of the watches] So if we call this the Sputnik period, and this the Hammerhead period, what do we call this [pointing to the 103]?
MF: Well, this we call the 103 [laughs] Yes, it's true, it has no nickname. When we opened the watch we called it a Targa. But there is no real nickname. This watch we also used to call the Millennium Falcon, which is a little bit where I got the idea for the shape.
At this point Yacine had come back with a special treat - the black platinum version of the 201. Everyone's eyes turned to what she had in her hands.
TZ: Thanks very much for your time Martin.
MF: Thank you.
The Black Hammerhead
The lovely Yacine Sar from URWERK
"The 201 began to occupy a part of my spirit during the conception phase of the Opus V for Harry Winston. I had already seen the mechanism in my mind and imagined it functioning as an evolution of our satellite hours. I tried to anticipate the difficulties and became impatient to work on this new challenge because I wanted URWERK to go much further down the development path than we had dared to go before; to go to a much higher level and to push the complication/concept much further. It was difficult however to find the limit as to what was humanly and technically possible, and what was haunting me to believe at all costs was possible…"
Felix Baumgartner
Master watchmaker and co-founder of URWERK
The limited edition black platinum 201 next to the platinum version
The blackening treatment gives the watch a shiny black look
Sharp, manly corners. The future is open.
I would like to thank Lauren Brand for arranging the appointment, Yacine Sar, Felix Baumgartner, and of course Martin Frei for his time. I hope you enjoyed reading. If you would like to learn more please visit URWERK’s web site by clicking here.
- felipe